Russia External

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Thanks for your input Polvoron, makes sense to me. Guess I can only wait and see how it goes for now.

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Ok so I tried walking without walkers yesterday with the belief that I gotta start pushing myself if I am to recover and go back to my pre-LL life in the next two to three months, because after all, I'm quite close to removal of frames which should happen somewhere in June. Woke up this morning in pain around my outer knee on right leg and my soft tissue damage on my left leg/ankle seemed to have worsen after getting better in the past few days. Currently on NSAID painkiller and feeling at peace.

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Hi everyone,

Just got nails and was discharged from hospital a few days back. I am permitted to 100% weight bearing since the nails are strong enough and my bones were already somewhat hard before inserting the nails. Currently walking with walkers and knees are still quite swollen with a bit of aching pain. All in all, feeling good and optimistic on my recovery. I target to walk unaided somewhere in August.

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10 days post nailing, have been walking on walker/crutches since day 3. Stopped using NSAID at the thought of slowing down bone healing, only on paracetamol now. Never expected the pain and discomfort to be so much more than when the external fixators were put on. The pain I'm currently experiencing is kinda hard to describe, no sharp pains, but I get persistent dull chilly aching pains at parts of my tibia. There is still considerable swelling, especially along and knees and the entire tibia, perhaps because of the reaming. I notice that the pain seems to get more annoying when it is cold. The locking screws at the top of the IM nail is painful on touch, maybe because my skin is very thin.

Anyone who has gone through IM nailing of the tibias care to share your experience post nailing? PT is very painful, knees are swollen stiff, making PT much dreaded.

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Update

Hi, thought I'd give an update. It's been 5, almost 6 weeks post nailing, I can waddle around at home without assistive devices, no more swelling and pain. Wounds have all healed fine. Working on my physio everyday and currently have around 3-5 degrees of dorsiflexion and full knee ROM.

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Idealy, pure externals would be the safest method, but it's long and painful. However every patient experiences pain differently. How did you find it? I mean, before inserting the nails

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Was supposed to do pure externals, but my doctor said my bone healing is slow so he suggested nailing and I agreed with him. There was no pain with external fixators, but a lot of inconvenience in daily life; getting dressed, keeping the wounds clean, controlling the infection to make sure they don't worsen, ankle flexibility impaired and they are very heavy. Did not realize how heavy they were until I got them removed and carried them on my hands.

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UPDATE

Hi everyone, pardon my lack of updates. I don't visit this forum as often anymore as I am recovering well and have moved on from this experience. Back to work as usual and my gait is fine now without any pain when walking. I still require conscious effort in climbing down stairs though, but I noticed that even this has gotten better ever since I resumed my isometric exercises that target my glutes and quads which I only do once a week, 10 sets of two reps each for straight leg raises and squats (got lazy to keep up with physio about a month after my nailing), and believe that it will only get better as long I am consistent in my rehab.

It has been half a year since nailing, I can jog and jump slightly, but extra must be taken as I slowly regain confidence in doing these activities. Will visit my local ortho again early next year to discuss getting the nails removed since I am still young with a long way to go and would like bring my legs back to closer to pre-LL surgery condition, so that I can travel the world with ease, once countries open up their borders for leisure travel again.